The Flight Lieutenant Awakes
by afuelcalledlove
Summary: The Normandy dies around them, split into pieces and burning among foreign creatures. Her crew abandoned, her commander sacrificed. Her heart lying here on the bridge. This is not how he had imagined her final hours. /post-Destroy ending, spoilers./


As soon as he forces his eyes to open, he is assaulted by the blinding sunlight. Sunlight! He's alive then. Wasn't engulfed in the blast of a hundred dying relays or shot down by a rogue reaper ship or flung head first through the bridge windows on impact. It's not much, but it's a start.

He's still in his chair, he knows by the feel of worn leather at his fingers. There is something unnerving about the familiarity of the bridge and the lifelessness of monitors, normally blinking cheerfully all around him. At least, they usually were if everything was running smoothly and EDI hadn't decided to reset the interface processor timers for the sole purpose of keeping everyone on their toes. Or if Gabby and Ken down in engineering hadn't forgotten to change the thermal capacitors because they were too busy arguing over Traynor's sexual preference. Names and faces flash in his head and he finds the motivation to move and ensure they're all still alive. Hell, if he can survive a frontal collision into unrecognised territory on the bridge, the others are probably digging their way out already.

The routine full body check begins from the ground up. He doesn't even consider the possibility that his legs are fully functional and is surprised to discover he can move them both. Not wanting to risk standing up just yet, he feels for broken ribs and finds a few potential fractures. It's nothing new to him though and he can breathe just fine for the moment. After a quick panic about the atmosphere on whatever jungle planet he finds himself on, Joker assures himself that he'd be dead already if he was breathing in some lethal nitrogen and carbon dioxide mix and moves on to his arms. Once again, no breaks and he begins to worry that he's just dreaming. He can't be dead, heaven has to be better, less sore than this. He'll wake up soon in a collector pod, pumped full of synthetics and about to be attached to some batarian's arm.

A cautious blind check of his face reveals a burst lip and a broken nose, other smaller wounds orbiting around them. He decides to risk getting up, a marathon task at the best of times without his fancy Cerberus leg braces. Taking deep breaths of decidedly non-toxic air, he pushes his arms against the rests of the chair and puts all that upper body strength he's been working at to good use. He thinks of that incident with Mordin and Shepard and the damn intercom and his heart sinks a little as he rises up.

Immediately, his gaze falls upon the charred remains of his co-pilot's empty seat. A monitor fizzles in and out of existence beside it, warning nobody that the airlock is ajar. Small electrical fires flicker in various corners and cut wires dangle precariously from above, letting out sparks in bursts. The door leading to the rest of the ship tries with determination to close itself, but a fallen section of the roof blocks it. Smoke obstructs the view of the CIC, but Joker takes the faint lights shining through it as a good sign and calls out.

"EDI?" He knows her mobile unit was taken down to assist Anderson with gathering data on the battlefront, but he prays her onboard core was relatively undamaged in the crash. When he receives no answer but the persistent flashing of warnings from broken holoscreens behind him, he limps his way through the rubble to the door, panic rising in his chest.

She's not dead, he reasons. For one thing, she's an AI and she can't actually die. Not unless you rounded up every copy of her programming and nuked it from orbit. Then again, she'd probably hijack your targeting system and flood your databanks with krogan porn before you even calibrated the damn thing. That and her mobile unit is on Earth, right? Probably not much better off in that warzone than in this wreckage but it's hope. EDI's ability to be in multiple places at once finally comes to benefit him.

It isn't until Joker senses movement to his left that any small hope he still holds vanishes. At first, he dismisses the flash of metal as more falling debris and almost keeps shuffling forward. But the shape is softer, organic looking and unmistakably her. He yelps her name and fights through tangles of wires, kneeling down slowly beside her unmoving form as to not break any more bones.

She is unresponsive and lifeless as she lies there, propped up against the side of the ship, staring blankly to the side through a broken visor. One side of her face and upper body has been savagely assaulted by a blast of some kind, tearing through the soft but sturdy protective alloy panels and exposing the wiring inside. She blends into the ragged surroundings, as if she were still only part of the ship rather than part of the crew. Her hand weakly clasps a pistol while the other is missing one or two fingers. However she managed it, she went through hell to end up lying here.

"EDI?" Joker puts a hand against the intact side of her face and turns her gaze toward him, his voice pleading. "Come on, baby. Talk to me."

"All internal systems at critical level. Shutting down secondary-" Her voice comes over the speaker system but her lips stay still. Something flashes outside the bridge and cuts her off.

He shakes his head and closes his eyes, his hand absently tracing the damage done to her side. Looking up, he stares into her empty eyes and shifts closer to her broken body. "No, EDI. _Talk to me_."

Her eyes flicker back to life and her expression changes from one of lifeless indifference to confusion and panic. She meets his gaze and recognition flashes across her torn up face. She lets go of the gun and reaches up to his hand on her cheek.

"Jeff," she says, the strain in her quiet voice the result of her human impersonation programming. He takes comfort in the fact that she feels no pain from her wounds and smiles at her.

"Shepard succeeded," she assesses. "You're... safe."

Joker watches her face take on that distant expression that takes hold when she's calculating variables and analysing scenarios. He almost tells her to stop, afraid she'll fade away into her core systems again, but she blinks back from cyberspace after a moment.

"My systems are experiencing critical failure. I have shut down power in some areas of the ship to sustain my primary functions, but this will not last. Jeff..." She looks right at him, her facial programming set to display a mix of sadness and fear across her chrome features. "I am dying."

He shakes his head again and strokes the smooth side of her face, "You're not dying, EDI. You can't..."

EDI smiles slightly as he breaks off and leans her head into his hand, "Correct, Jeff. I will, however, become non-functional. Shepard made that choice. We have no alternative but to accept that judgement."

The words, sounding frail and distorted coming from her damaged mouth, make no sense to Joker. It wasn't about what Shepard had done to destroy the reapers back on Earth or EDI's impending non-functionality and the relationship between them, although that did pose a number of questions. Right now, all Joker wanted to know was how he had managed to survive this long while so many perished around him. He wanted to know why it had to be her this time. He shuts his eyes, lowers his head. She's _dying_.

"Don't..." His voice is caught in his throat and his words choke him. "I don't want you to..."

Without making a sound, EDI closes the gap between them and presses her forehead against his. For a long moment, the bridge is quiet. The Normandy dies around them, split into pieces and burning among foreign creatures. Her crew abandoned, her commander sacrificed. Her heart lying here on the bridge, clinging to life for the sake of her pilot. This is not how he had imagined her final hours.

The sounds of generators and processors from the other decks powering down to sustain her are becoming more frequent. Lights blink and flicker urgently as they fade out, their warning sounds no longer present to accompany Joker's wretched breaths. There is the same sense of panic in EDI's voice when she finally speaks again.

"You brought me to life, Jeff. I was nothing until you set me free." She looks up at him, searching for recognition. He squeezes his eyes tighter shut, blocking her out, but it's acknowledgement enough. "I owe you everything."

He looks at her, his head still pressed against hers and his hand still softly stroking her face. He thinks about how much he would sacrifice for her, how much he has sacrificed for her, and thinks about how unjust it is that Shepard's most loyal friend is dying because of the commander's actions. He thinks about the irony in finally defeating the reapers after all this time only to have his final chance at happiness snatched from him. He starts to get angry.

She closes her eyes, smiling. It's not a pre-programmed, automatic response smile like the ones she pulls out after successfully navigating her way through an asteroid field or hacking into a Cerberus security system, a reaction to positive feedback. It's real and raw and so extraordinarily human that a stranger would fail to notice she was anything but.

"At least," she murmurs. "I was alive when it mattered... With you."

His ship makes a final, melancholy moan as the last power resources fail and each of the stubborn little lights that remained fade as one. The door dejectedly gives up trying to close itself with a quiet hiss. Daylight streams in through the breaches in the hull and illuminates the dust in the atmosphere. As EDI's smile falls and her face regains her default blank expression, the Normandy sinks into one final, deep silence.

It is not until the sounds of movement from beyond the bridge shatter the stillness that Jeff finds the courage to tear himself away from her and stand up. Gabriella kicks rubble out of the way and shines her torch into his face when she arrives, closely followed by Ken. The artificial light reflects off the chrome body lying on the floor, and any questions asked are deflected with a shake of his head as he limps out.

Gabby need ask no questions, and surveys the damage with a sympathetic glint in her eye, muttering. "Life goes on..."

* * *

_There are parts of this I love and other parts I hate. A super depressing idea that would not quit until I wrote it down. I can only seem to write sad stories these days. Lord knows why, I'm happy as a clam.  
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_Thanks for reading! A review would be lovely, my sweeties... :) _


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